Welcome to Vintage to Vogue, which sees the Vogue team take on a different trend or occasion each month and show you how to shop it second-hand.
Visiting Paris a week before the the start of the Olympics is not an advisable move. With a mini heatwave descending on the city, Metro strikes in full swing and every other street blocked off by police cordons – I was literally caged in mid-lunch by workmen installing metal barriers – navigating the city was like an episode of Squid Game, only with Saint Laurent tote bags and passive aggressive Lime bikes. I’m not sure what was higher, the soaring temperatures or the blood pressure of local commuters.
The only saving grace was that my hotel was slap-bang in the middle of Le Marais, aka a vintage-lover’s paradise, and so I set about doing God’s work: namely, trawling through as many second-hand stores as I physically could in four days. My key takeaways? Firstly, all of the staff were dressed as though they had just stepped out of a Christina Aguilera music video circa 1999 (What A Girl Wants, if we’re being specific). The rails were filled with similarly nostalgic styles that sent me back to my ’90s and Noughties childhood – think photographic-print mesh tops, low-slung trousers, chain belts, rah-rah skirts and halterneck tops – but there was one archival brand that cropped up more than any other: Cop.Copine
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Founded in Paris in 1986 by the Nédélian family, Cop.Copine (originally called Copain-Copine) helped to define the utilitarian eclecticism that pervaded fashion in the mid-to-late ’90s and early aughts. While it failed to maintain its standing in the contemporary market (it went into receivership in 2022), the industry’s newfound obsession with all things Y2K has driven a spike in interest for preloved pieces from Cop.Copine: Vestiaire Collective reported a 20 per cent increase in searches month-on-month, while eBay saw a 15 per cent increase within the first three months of the year.
“With the growing interest in archival fashion, Cop.Copine is one of the more niche brands seeing a major comeback right now,” explains Julia Rabinowitsch, the brains behind cult resale platform, The Millennial Decorator. “With its vibrant colours and playful mesh, the brand’s pieces are a perfect representation of ’90s and early-2000s fashion. I would recommend looking out for its famous vibrant mesh shirts, as these styles are seeing a major comeback and have already been flying on the second-hand market.”
